Project

The COVID-19 Writers Project (C19WP)

The COVID-19 Writers Project (C19WP) captures a hyperlocal viewpoint of the coronavirus Pandemic from inside the virus’s hotspot—New York City—while examining the extent to which health outcomes are impacted by socio-economics, education, and race.

Inspired by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Federal Writers Project (FWP) of the 1930s that produced audio and written recordings of formerly enslaved Americans, similarly, C19WP presents first-person multimedia narratives that reflect our current condition.

Through video, essays, and photography, the multimedia project builds a historical record—a cross-section of experiences, from the emergency medical physician whose wife delivered their first baby during the pandemic, to a formerly incarcerated man trying to survive in the pandemic while homeless and washing windows, to the landlord whose tenants have mounted a rent strike—ultimately answering: What is the crisis telling us about who we are as a society today?

C19WP Foreword

In March, C. Zawadi Morris set out to gather first-person narratives of as many subjects as possible across Brooklyn for The COVID-19 Writers Project. The multimedia project captured 10 stories on video, through Zoom calls, to represent our digital thumbprint as a society yearning to connect despite social distancing.

Grief is Purgatory

For two months, I laid on my couch tortured by what I could’ve and should have done.

Community and Hope Amid Disaster

The pandemic reminded us all that not only are we stronger together, but that our fates are intertwined in this globally connected world like never before.